Women seeking an autism diagnosis in Australia: A qualitative exploration of factors that help and hinder.
Provider dismissal and male-centric tools block adult autism diagnosis in women—fix forms and staff talk to stop the cycle.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lineberry et al. (2023) talked with ten autistic women across Australia.
They asked what helped and what blocked each woman from getting an autism label as an adult.
The team sorted answers into three piles: personal, provider, and system-level factors.
What they found
Doctors often brushed the women off, saying "you don’t look autistic."
Standard tests felt built for boys and missed how autism shows up in women.
Long wait lists, high fees, and scant female norms added extra walls.
How this fits with other research
Diemer et al. (2023) asked Australian parents of autistic daughters the same question and heard the same reply: male-centric tools delay diagnosis.
Huang et al. (2021) crunched numbers from 657 Australian adults and showed that simply being female predicts a later label; Sarah’s interviews explain why.
Pollock et al. (2026) carried the story forward: after women finally get the news they feel grief, relief, and burnout, showing that fixing the front-end matters for later mental health.
Lam et al. (2025) found parallel dismissal in Hong Kong, proving the barrier is not just an Aussie glitch.
Why it matters
If you conduct adult autism screens, fold female-typical traits into your checklists and intake forms.
Train intake staff to replace "you don’t look autistic" with open questions.
These small edits can shorten the road to diagnosis and lower the risk of later burnout, self-harm, and lost careers that other papers trace to late discovery.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
An autism diagnosis can have a big impact on women and make it possible to access support. This study explored women's experiences of being diagnosed with autism as an adult in Australia, to try to understand what was helpful (facilitators) and unhelpful (barriers) for them during this process. We interviewed 10 autistic women who had been diagnosed in the last 5 years. Framework analysis was used to understand the data. We wanted to understand barriers and facilitators relating to the individual participants, the professionals they saw and the system they went through for their diagnostic assessment. Women reported that being able to recognise they were autistic, being motivated, preparing for the assessment, having social support and unmasking to be themselves were helpful during the diagnostic process. They reported that having a knowledgeable diagnostician who made accommodations for their needs assisted them during the assessment process. When providers dismissed the participants when they first raised the possibility they were autistic, it delayed them in seeking an assessment. At the system level, the women in this study found some aspects of the healthcare system difficult to navigate, particularly costs and long waitlists. Some found the assessment tools used were not well suited to them. The experiences of the women in this study highlight improvements that could be made to accessing an adulthood autism diagnosis in Australia. These include improving provider knowledge of the varied presentation of autism and the development of resources to help autistic women prepare for their diagnostic assessment.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2023 · doi:10.1177/13623613221117911